[liberationtech] Cryptocat: Translation Volunteers Needed

[Andy Isaacson]

On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:28:37AM -0400, Catherine Roy wrote:
> Browser optimization is not something to take lightly and basically
> dismissing someone by telling them to go contribute code on github

See, you're missing the point here.  Cryptocat isn't just a website that
needs to add some Opera specific CSS hacks, 5 minutes and done.  It's a
browser plugin, which requires, at a guess, 20% of the total effort of
the project for each new browser that's supported.  And it sounds like
Opera is missing some important technology in its plugin support (though
I haven't investigated this myself, I trust Nadim to have a handle on
the issues here).

It's not as if you're asking an Android developer "hey, my new Nexus
doesn't work with your app".  Rather you're asking a Android+iOS app
"hey it would be awesome if you ported to Blackberry too!" (requiring a
completely new set of J2ME bindings, etc).

The amount of work you're demanding (and yes, your first public post did
come across as, arguably, demanding; and you doubled down when Nadim
pushed back) is significant, and Opera is a small niche platform.  The
cost benefit tradeoff just isn't worth it to the current developers.  If
someone who cares about Opera can contribute technically, then great;
but while open source does need to listen to users, the overwhelming
success of projects like Linux is largely due to developers ignoring
non-technical "I want you to do free work for me" arguments.

Feel free to sponsor a developer!  It could be kickstartered or similar,
for example.

-andy